Managing Dashboards

Learn how to manage dashboards.

While every Wavefront user can view dashboards, you must have Dashboard Management permission to manage dashboards.
If you don’t have the permission, the UI menu selections, buttons, and links you use to perform management tasks are not visible.

Creating a Dashboard

You can create a dashboard from the All Dashboards page, an existing dashboard, a chart, or the Metrics browser.

Do one of the following:

In the All Dashboards page, click the Create Dashboard button on the filter bar.

From an existing dashboard, click the pencil icon on the right side of the browser window below the task bar, and select New. Or click Clone to create a new dashboard based on the existing dashboard you are currently viewing.

From a chart, scroll down to the Save to section and click New Dashboard.

From the Metrics browser, click Create Dashboard in the top left corner of the page to begin creating a dashboard. Creating a dashboard this way automatically creates sections and charts based on the current set of metrics in the Metrics list. Sections are created by first-level nodes, individual charts by second-level nodes and finally all metrics on the third-level or below are rendered on a single chart. Creating a dashboard from the Metrics browser allows you to apply additional parameters such as sources and source tags.

A Create New Dashboard dialog displays. Enter a URL and name for your dashboard.

The URL field supports letters, numbers, underscores, and dashes.
Note If you enter any special character or space, then the URL field turns red and requires you to make changes before saving. You can specify my_url but not http://my_url.com because :// and the period are special characters.

The Name field supports letters, numbers, characters, and spaces.

Click Create, edit the dashboard, and click Save.

Note: Many Wavefront customers manage use existing dashboards as templates, and store dashboard templates as well as dashboards generated from scratch in a a repository such as GitHub.

Deploying a Dashboard

Dashboards are stored in JSON format. You can deploy a dashboard JSON file with the Wavefront API using the following command:

Cloning a Dashboard

From the All Dashboards page, locate the dashboard, click the three dots, and select Clone.

From a dashboard, click the pencil icon on the right side below the task bar, and select Clone.

Specify a new URL.

Optionally edit the dashboard name.

Click Clone.

Editing a Dashboard

Note:System dashboards are read-only so they can be easily updated. If
you want to make your own version of a system dashboard, you can clone it providing a new dashboard URL and then make changes to
the clone. If you have a dashboard with the same URL as a system dashboard, when Wavefront deploys the system dashboard
a copy of your dashboard is saved with "-clone" added to the URL and "(Cloned)" added to the name.

In the Dashboards page, system dashboards are indicated with a next to the dashboard name.

When editing a dashboard, you can make changes to the dashboard description, name, dashboard variables, sections, and charts.

To edit a dashboard:

From the All Dashboards page, locate the dashboard, click the three dots on the left and and select Edit.

From a dashboard, click the pencil icon on the right side below the task bar, and select Edit.

The dashboard displays in edit mode.

Edit the dashboard.

When editing a dashboard, you may make several changes at a time. To remove a change, click the revert icon to the left of Edit JSON on the task bar. The revert icon removes changes starting with the most recent and works backwards. You can remove only changes made in the current edit mode session.

To save configuration changes, click the Save button in the top right.

Setting the Dashboard Name and Description

If you enter a description and want it to be displayed on your dashboard, click Show Description.

Click Accept.

Configuring Dashboard Sections

Charts are contained in sections. By default, every dashboard has at least one section. A section link bar displays directly below the time bar at the top of the dashboard.

Jump to a section by clicking the link in the section bar. If the section link bar is not displayed, turn it on in the Dashboard Display Preferences.

While editing a dashboard, available sections actions are:

Change the name:

Click the name at the far left.

Type a new name.

Press Enter or Return or click anywhere away from the section name.

Move, add, or delete. Click icons on the far right.

Resizing Rows

Resize a row within a section by clicking the resize icons on the left side of each row. Resizing a row resizes every chart in that row.

Editing the Dashboard JSON

You can directly modify any dashboard properties by editing the dashboard’s JSON format. Use this option only if you have a good understanding of JSON. To access the JSON editor:

Put the dashboard in edit mode.

Click Edit JSON next to the Save button on the task bar. The JSON format displays in the Tree editor. You can use the tree controls to expand, collapse, and reorder nodes.

You can also edit the JSON code directly by selecting Tree > Code. For example, to change a row height, edit the row’s heightFactor property:

...
],
"heightFactor": 100
},
...

Click Accept.

Deleting Dashboards

To delete one or more dashboards:

In the All Dashboards page:

Select the checkboxes next to one or more dashboards and click the trash can.

Locate a dashboard, select the three dots to the left, click Delete, and confirm the delete action.

From a dashboard, click the pencil icon, select Delete, and confirm the delete action.

The dashboard(s) are moved to the Trash. You can view the Trash on the All Dashboards page by clicking the trash toggle.

You can recover a dashboard that was moved to the Trash less than 30 days ago. After 30 days, the deleted dashboard is removed from the Trash and you can no longer recover it. To permanently remove a dashboard before the 30 day deadline, toggle the Trash icon and manually delete it.

Managing Dashboard Versions

Wavefront keeps track of changes made to a dashboard and displays those changes in the Dashboard History page. You can access a dashboard’s history from the All Dashboards page or directly from the dashboard:

From the All Dashboards page, find the desired dashboard in the list, click the three dots on the left, and select Versions.

From a dashboard, click the pencil icon, and select Versions.

On the Past Versions page, each revision is listed along with the user who made the change, the day and time it was updated, and the change description.

To revert a change, select Revert next to the desired version to go back that version. When you confirm, you are sent to the dashboard version you chose. If you go back to the Past Versions page, the change is reflected on the list.

If you want to view a previous dashboard version before reverting, click the number associated with the dashboard change on the Past Versions page. You can clone a specific dashboard version by selecting a revision, and then performing a clone operation.

Managing Dashboard Tags

Managing Charts in Dashboards

To make changes to a chart in a dashboard, put the dashboard in edit mode. After making a change, click Save.

Deleting, Cloning, and Editing a Chart

Click the pen icon to enter edit mode.

Hover over a chart. Three icons display in the bottom left corner of the chart box .

Delete, clone, or edit the selected chart. When you clone a chart, it is created in a separate row below the selected chart.
Note When you clone a chart, specify just the name, e.g.myurl in the URL field. Do not specify the full URL.

You can also edit a chart by clicking the chart name in the top right corner. Save your changes by clicking Save in the chart.

Moving a Chart

To move a chart:

Hover over a chart.

Left-click your mouse and hold. The cursor changes to .

Drag the chart to a new position on the dashboard. You can move the chart to an existing row or to a new row by dragging a chart over an Add New Chart box.

You can place up to four charts in a row. More charts in a row means smaller charts. Smaller charts means fewer point buckets and a larger the amount of time represented by each point bucket. See Chart Resolution.